How did you get your first real job?

By 'real' job I mean the job where you were earning enough to pay for your living expenses, not an after-school gig (unless you're an emancipated minor or something).

I applied for it

Saw an ad in the paper and applied for it.

Applied for it. Actually, the job I have now is my first real job.

I don't count my high school employment at Office Max or my numerous volunteer jobs while in college.

I applied for a restaurant job along with my girlfriend and some others and I got the job out of the whole lot. I washed dishes and hated it. Then my dad got me a job at a gas station which I liked much better. Both were $3.35 an hour which was minimum wage back then. I was living at home then and paying nothing for expenses. I guess my first real job was the Air Force, I didn't have to pay my way. I got pay and the dorm to live in and the chow hall to eat at. If you consider the Air Force a job. I don't know.

I was working full time as a bookkeeper for a local hospital. The management company that handled the food service hired me for one of their other locations. I was making 17K a year and thought I had hit the big time. This was in 1991.

My first "real" job was Jiffy Lube. I was 18, saw a sign on the door that said help wanted, and I applied. The Manager interviewed me immediately, asked me if I worked on my own vehicle(which I did), and hired me on the spot at $6.25hr. 20 minutes later I was smoking a bowl with my new workmates in the pit!

I offered to work for less than minimum wage. I was hired quick smart.

Hmm. Kinda sucks to exclude everything before high school graduation. I was fairly industrius, for such a lazy bastard. The first job I got to pay my own way after I moved out..hmmm. I was doing a LOT of drugs at the time, so the memory is kinda foggy, but it was either McDonalds or a telemarketing job. Can't remember which came first, but I got fired from both for poor attendance. After that, it was one more telemarketeering job in another city, a string of C-stores and fast food, less than one week in a saw mill, then delivering for Little Caesar's, then Menard's, then it was 1998 and I fell ass backwards into my present vocation. An illustrious job history if I ever saw one.

I voted before I read the "high school" disclaimer.
So, I guess my first "real" job was The Air Force.

Work/Release program... Grinding plastic.

I had an agent that found me a house gig. Five nights a week two states away.

It's funny because now you work from home.

I laugh.

Ha.

The ultimate house gig.

What's it taste like, giving up on your dreams?



Does it taste like failure?

I was hired as a still photographer at my hometown newspaper to fill in for the regular editor/photographer after he was shot by his wife. After he recovered they tried to keep me on as an additional photographer, but they quickly realized that they couldn't afford us both so I got laid off.

The next week I was visiting one of my cousins and his wife said that the woman she baby-sat for had a job opening at the teevee station where she was the general manager. I applied for the position and was hired. I was out of work* for a total of two weeks, IIRC.

















*During this time, I really wasn't "out" of work because I was doing construction for my dad's company.

What does failure taste like?

No college? There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. I'm just surprised because the friend of mine we've talked about before went to school for Journalism/Communications and started as a photog before transitioning to a role in front of the camera.

Some of the best people I've worked with through the years either didn't finish college or, in the case of photographers, didn't go at all.

I have an Associates degree.

How old are you now?

What does it feel like to have peaked decades ago?

Sadness, with a hint of desperation.

It's a bit like licking that thermal paper some places print their receipts on.

My department head at the university recommended me (without my knowledge) to three companies prior to graduation. I got offers from all three.

I went to church with the owner of the local NAPA Parts House. He hired my two best friends and about a year later, had another opening and hired me.

I actually heard it advertised on the radio of all places. I applied two days later and within 3 weeks I had an interview and was hired.

What he said.

Nepotism.

Oddly enough, same here.

I pulled a sword out of a stone.

I'll get back to you on that...when it happens*.















*I'm still in college.

No? Really?

First actual job was thanks to my father, who was the foreman of a machine shop and hired me to work in the paint booth when I was 16. I probably soaked more laquer thinner into my flesh in those few years than I have building model for the next 35. But that wasn't enough pay to support myself, no. 80 bucks a week, IIRC.

That first "real" job was thanks to a friend of Mary's (we weren't married yet), who worked for an early videocassette duplicating house. They needed a draftsman in engineering. Started there in April of 1978 making 200 bucks a week. I wasn't quite 21 yet.